Sixteen Vietnamese sailors who were taken to New Zealand's Chirschurch on January 25, 2012 Photo: VNA

The sailors arrived in Hanoi’s Noi Bai Airport at 12:30 pm and all of them were in good health condition. Most of them said they would return home to re-unite with their families within today.

Two days ago, they were taken to New Zealand’s Chirschurch, where they were received by Nguyen Le Thanh, first secretary in charge of consular affairs of the Vietnamese Embassy in New Zealand.

Two other sailors, Ngo Van Si and Tran Van Ngoan, remain in Christchurch Hospital for continued treatment of their injuries. Si is expected to be discharged next week while Ngoan may need a longer time of treatment, doctors said.

With regard to three Vietnamese sailors who remain missing, a representative of the Korean shipping company that operates the ship said efforts to look for them had been hindered by bad weather.

The Consular Department of Vietnam’s Foreign Ministry and the Vietnamese Embassies in New Zealand and South Korea are working with the International Manpower Supply and Service Co. and the LOD Human Resource Development Corporation to resolve issues related to all the victims’ rights and interests.

The 51m-long Korean fishing vessel Jeong-woo 2 issued a distress call at 3 a.m. on January 11 after it was engulfed in fire while catching fish in the remote Ross Sea, about 3,700 km southeast of New Zealand.

Around 40 crewmembers were on board the boat at the time.

“The 3 missing sailors, all of whom are Vietnamese, are believed to have died in a cabin where they were sleeping when the fire broke out," Woo Suk-dong, the South Korean consul in New Zealand, told Yonhap.

Among the remaining 37 seamen rescued, 6 are South Korean and the other 31 come from Vietnam, Indonesia, China, Russia, and other countries.